By: Travis Allen

I started playing Magic in 1993 or 1994; I forget which. I was young, as most of us would have been back then. This was the era when people unironically spoke of uncles that worked for Nintendo and Sega and claimed knowledge of special cheat codes that would make the characters in Mortal Kombat strip off their clothes. We played Magic at lunch mostly. Unsleeved decks with wildly imbalanced mana:spell ratios. I’m positive the decks were of no particular size. Card selection rarely moved beyond “all my green cards and black cards.”

What was amazing about this time was the total lack of information. The term “big data” is thrown around so much at academic conferences these days that it’s become embarrassing to genuinely use the term. In 1993 though, you knew nothing beyond your local playgroup. On the rare occasion that someone somehow obtained more cards, perhaps receiving a single booster pack as part of their birthday gift, you poured over them eagerly excited to see what other pieces of this giant puzzle existed. It really was a sensation that is so difficult to capture these days. It’s probably why I enjoy Dark Souls so much. It captures much of the “I have no idea what is happening and I love it” sensation from days past.

To this day I find I carry a strong visceral reaction to certain cards. It’s difficult to describe. Leviathan is probably the single card that best captures my memories of the game. Looking at the image on magiccards.info doesn’t really do it for me. I need to hold the cardboard in my hand. Copies from The Dark work best. When I grasp that card and gaze into it, attempting to lose myself in it’s aesthetic, I experience flashes of nostalgia that I can’t get manage anywhere else. Sometimes it’s the white font against the blue background, readability not a part of the lexicon of design back then. Perhaps it’s the way the tail disappears back behind the lighthouse, perplexingly descending from the clouds in a manner incongruent with your expectations a giant sea creature. It may be the offset mana symbols due to less printing oversight or the contrast between the ancient frame and the faded black border.

Regardless of what element of the card catalyzes these flashes of buried nostalgia, I find myself drawn to the original border. It is an icon of days faded, forever imbued with character and design flaws and mystery. The new border is fine, yes. It’s cleaner, easier to read, and meshes better with advancing mechanics. But it will never have the mystique and history of the original border. Whenever people tell me they prefer the new border I always feel a little sad for them, halcyon memories of childhood inaccessible with a simple piece of cardboard.

The result of all of this is that I acquire foil old border cards wherever possible. They help capture part of the magic of Magic for me. Mixing the history of the original border with the luxury of foils is my favorite way to collect. When was the last time you saw a mint foil card from any of the old sets? They are brilliantly shiny in a way that new foils completely lack. Some of the most beautiful Magic cards in existence are old border foils. (Henceforth OBFs.)

Normally when a new set comes out I’ll scan the spoiler for reprints, see if they had an older printing, and grab foil copies where possible. Off the top of my head I’ve got full or partial sets of Lay of the Land, Ray of Revelation, Llanowar Elves, Lightning Bolt, Last Breath, Worldly Counsel, and Naturalize.

When M15 was spoiled my process was no different. As soon as I saw the painlands I took to TCGPlayer to scoop up my foil Apocalypse copies. Let me tell you, “painland” could not be more appropriate.

Oof. $30+ apiece for a land legal in Standard for a single year that I may never actually have the chance to put into play. The worst part of this is that they aren’t getting any cheaper. Ever.

Possibly the most rock-solid place to invest your MTG funbux are OBFs. They may not rise quickly or often, but it is virtually impossible for them to get cheaper. No matter the card, copies will be limited by today’s standards. If they’re reprinted, the new copies will be in a different border, placing no strain on the original copies. Heck, as we can see with the painlands, reprinting of old cards actually makes the foils rise. Suddenly those foil Apocalypse Battlefield Forges that were listed at $6 forever are Standard legal and worth $20+ apiece.

Nearly every OBF is a great pickup simply because they have nowhere to go but up. Have a playset of foil UZD Yavimaya Elders? Great, it’s worth $60. If they get judge promo’d know how much your set of UZD ones would be? $60. If they get printed at common in M16 know how much your set of UZD ones would be? $100+, easily.

Demand for OBFs is not rooted in playability, but collectability and luxury. People collect them because they’re beautiful and original and unique, not because they need them to play a tournament. M11 Lightning Bolts are a buck. The only OBF of the card is $250. This is really what makes them the bastion of value that they are. It would be incredibly difficult for Wizards to print something that would devalue these cards. You think the Onslaught foils of Flooded Strand and Polluted Delta are expensive now? Wait until they show up in a fall set.

All of this leads to a simple but painful conclusion. The best time to buy an OBF is now. Whether you’re reading that sentence on 7/23/14 when this article goes live or three years down the road in 2017, it is still accurate. This conclusion is painful because many of these cards are already astronomically expensive. Those ONS foil Flooded Strands are $300, but the fact of the matter is that they aren’t getting cheaper. If you want them, acquire them sooner than later. This time next year one of two things will be true. They’ll either still be $300, or they’ll be $500+ because they were announced for the fall set. The one thing that won’t happen is that they’ll be less than they are today. Maybe you’ll be in better economic standings next year so you decide to wait, but just remember that you’re playing chicken with a train that you can’t see coming.

The absolute best place to go of course is actual reserve list OBFs. Reserve list cards are already gold, and grabbing OBFs – of which by my quick and almost assuredly inaccurate count there are under thirty – is icing on the cake. Just start at the end of this list and work your way backwards. What are some of the best choices?

Replenish – EDH staple and Legacy combo piece. Just because it’s not busting Legacy open right now doesn’t mean it can’t down the road.

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary – Absurdly powerful legendary creature in one of the most popular tribes of all time? Can’t go wrong.

Metalworker – Inspires entire combo decks in Legacy and enables shenanigans in EDH.

Academy Rector – Another dormant Legacy combo piece that’s also popular both in EDH and casual circles.

Palinchron – EDH staple and generator of infinite mana.

Grim Monolith – EDH staple, Legacy and Vintage busted mana acceleration.

Deranged Hermit – Possibly the wackiest OBF on the reserve list. He’s the godfather of a silly beloved tribe that will always have a place in the heart of a subset of players. 

Old border foils are some of the most visually striking and iconic cards in the game. Their supply is miniature and chances of price surges reasonable. If reprinted they will gain value, not lose it.The worst case scenario for any of them is that Wizards reprints them in the original border ala Timeshifted cards, but even in that case it would merely slow their growth, not decrease their value. If you’re like me and you love the look of old border foils, now is the time to start buying. It’s painful, but it’s only going to get worse.

By: Travis Allen

M15 is the love letter to players M14 should have been. There are a lot of new powerful cards including four new Planeswalkers, a few old favorites revisited, the fourth entry in the decade run of You Make the Card, and an entire run of guest designed cards. I haven’t seen people this jazzed about a core set since M10.

I wrote an introduction to set reviews just last week so I’m going to copy it here:

It’s important to remember when reading any set review that we are forced to evaluate cards in a pseudo-vacuum, but they never exist as such. When I look at Brimaz I have to consider the card individually, free of whatever the metagame looks like that particular month. Brimaz’s text box isn’t going to change but the cards other people are playing are. I need to focus on what concrete information I have available to me. Because of this set reviews are especially challenging. I have to look at Brimaz and make an evaluation based strictly on the words printed on the card, but his true worth will be dependent on the cards around him, a pool that will change significantly over time. Cards that are excellent right now may have been trash in an alternate timeline. It would be easy to construct a Standard environment where Desecration Demon is crap (such as INN-RTR,) or where Prime Speaker Zegana is a chase mythic. Even the hallowed Jace was bad at release since there wasn’t a single other playable blue card in the format and Bloodbraid Elf + Blightning threatened to shut him down as soon as he resolved.

The point I’m making is that when considering this review, and all other reviews, it’s important to be good Bayesians and recognize that a powerful card should be good and a weaker, situational card should be bad, but the constraints of the format around them, complete unknowns to the hapless reviewer, will be the true determining factor in identifying whether a card is a bulk mythic or a $20 rare.

I’ve structured my review to identify which cards are bulk, and of those that aren’t, what I think their prices may be around this fall’s rotation, and sometime about six months from now in January, ahead of the second Khans set. Anything in the bulk section means it’s cheap now ($2 or under) and will still be cheap at basically all points.

White

Bulk
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
Mass Calcify
Resolue Archangel
Spectra Ward

 

Ajani Steadfast
Ravnica Rotation: $10-$12
Six Months: $8

I’ll outline a few rules of thumb for evaluating Planeswalkers, since we’re going to be doing it a bunch this set. It’s important that a Planeswalker be capable of protecting itself. If you play it into a board where you have no threats and they have one guy or two small guys, can the Planeswalker keep itself alive? What’s the mana cost look like? Four and under and a walker can reasonably be considered competitive. Over four and the bar is much higher. Elspeth is an example of an exception to the rule. Finally, how flexible is the walker? Koth required your deck to have a critical mass of actual Mountains to be worth running. Nissa Revane wanted you to play a pile of elves. Jace, The Mind Sculptor…wanted you to be capable of paying for his mana cost. That’s it.

Ajani isn’t the hottest at protecting himself. There’s no body generated, which means that if you don’t already have someone to run interference he can’t make one. What’s worse is that his +1 is a total blank without anything in play, so you can’t even run him out into certain death to try and grind some advantage, as you can with Jace, Architect of Thought. On the other hand, his mana cost is quite friendly. There have only ever been two other XC Planeswalkers; Chandra Firebrand and Garruk Relentless. Firebrand was a flop but Relentless was important his entire time in Standard. A four mana walker with only a single colored symbol is quite flexible in its applications, which will help him find plenty of homes. Given how his abilities work, that is clearly critical for his success.

Ajani can’t do much at all on his own which is going to keep him from the big leauges. JAoT drew cards. Domri (sometimes) drew cards. Elspeth creates an army. All of them could gain advantage on an empty board, which Ajani can’t. What he does do for you is provide awesome support for your team. One solid creature on the board makes his +1 pretty legitimate. You get a “free” attack because of the vigilance as well as a nice buffer of life. His -2 is worth at least five mana if we’re looking at Gavony Township as the bar, and his adds counters to other Planeswalkers as well, which is certainly worth something.

Since Ajani requires support in play you can’t run him as a four-of. Being almost entirely relegated to a pair or perhaps set in most lists will prevent him from climbing much. I anticipate he’ll see some mild success in aggro or midrange GW builds, and if a Bant walkers style list pops up he’ll likely have a slot. He should keep dropping towards $10 as we come up on Khans, and by next January he’ll probably be pretty close to his floor in the $7-$10 range.

 

Hushwing Gryff
Ravnica Rotation: $2-$3
Six Months: $1-$3

Most recognize that Gryff’s impact will be felt mostly on Modern, which is the format that will primarily be responsible for driving the value. A flash Torpor Orb that attacks is pretty cool, although dying to half an Electrolyze is sort of a bummer. Thalia isn’t more than $6 and she’s better in more places, so I don’t think Gryff can climb above that for awhile. I also don’t believe there will be enough demand for his ability in Standard for his presence there to matter much, although if Khans is an ETB-heavy set it could do a bit better. Overall I’d mostly expect him to fare a tad better than Spirit of the Labyrinth.

 

Preeminent Captain
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$2
Six Months: Bulk-$2

Preeminent Captain was over $5 before the reprint, so clearly there’s some demand for this effect. He was printed in Morningtide though, which is one of the sets most poised for inflated prices in modern Magic. This second printing should satiate most all the casual demand and unless we get some sicknasty soldiers in Khans, he’ll probably function as reasonably popular card in some white aggro build. Unfortunately for him there’s only ever going to be one deck that wants him, which means his price is pretty capped.

 

Return to the Ranks
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$2
Six Months: Bulk – $6

This isn’t going anywhere before rotation, so let the price get nice and low before you buy any copies you want. The format is likely far too hostile for this to matter yet.

It’s after rotation that this gets interesting. Clearly the card is powerful; most who write set reviews with an eye towards playability have taken the time to discuss it. What really seems to set up this card is that there is a lot of graveyard interaction showing up in M15, possibly hinting at a graveyard theme or subtheme in Khans. If that’s the case then the resources this really needs to take off could be coming. If they do this may end up as a tier one or tier two deck ala The Aristocrats. If we don’t get enough enablers, it will relish in barley-bulk levels as FNMers try week in and week out to make fetch happen. A card like this is really difficult to provide a price for since it so wildly depends on what the format looks like. Instead I’m telling you what we need to see for it to matter. Watch for my Khans review to see if it looks like the seeds are planted.

 

Soul of Theros
Ravnica Rotation: $6-$8
Six Months: $4-$7

Hey remember about twenty seconds ago when I said we were seeing an oddly large amount of graveyard interaction in a core set? Well look at that! An entire mythic cycle of clearly Standard playable creatures with graveyard interaction.

SoT is one of the better souls. If you can afford him you can afford his activated ability, which a single attack with can completely turn the game around. Even if he’s your only creature you’re still threatening a sixteen point life swing while still holding up a 6/6 to block. His graveyard ability is also excellent in midrangey decks, letting you threaten a massive combat trick at all times after turn six. As a 6/6 with vigilance and two solid abilities, I like SoT’s chances a lot. The only thing really holding him back is that he shares a casting cost with Elspeth.

Soul of Theros should tick down between now and rotation as it’s unlikely he will explode out of the gates, but he won’t drop too far because people will be eager to see what happens after September. This time next January it’s more probable that he continues to slip towards $5 with mild to moderate use, but anything is possible. I don’t expect him to be $12-$20, but I recognize it as a possibility if he becomes one of the marquee cards of the set.

 

Spirit Bonds
Ravnica Rotation: Bulk – $2
Six Months: $1-$4

This card has flown under the radar a bit, but it’s definitely capable of being a big player in Standard. Getting an extra 1/1 flyer out of every creature you play is quite valuable for attritiony decks, and having a way to turn those tokens into indestructibility is just icing on the cake. Like most M15 cards I don’t expect this will have an impact by the time rotation comes around, but there’s certainly a real chance this could become a $2-$3 rare at least as things shake out. Score these as throw-ins where you can.

 

Blue

Bulk
Chasm Skulker
Jalira, Master Polymorphist
Master of Predicaments
Mercurial Pretender
Polymorphist’s Jest
Stormtide Leviathan

 

Aetherspouts
Ravnica Rotation Bulk – $2
Six Months: $1-$5

Evacuation is $2 with six printings. Cyclonic Rift is $3+ with a positive outlook. Aetherspouts is in the same family. You won’t get to flip all their artifacts and enchantments as you do with Cyclonic Rift. Instead you either get a pseudo-wrath by forcing them to pile creatures on the bottom of their library, or you set their draw step back several turns with perfect knowledge of what’s coming. It’s possible to play around but if they’re doing that they’re not attacking, so you’re getting virtual advantage from that alone. I see this getting played as a pseudo-wrath in blue decks that don’t have access to whatever sweeper we end up with. It will probably hang around in the $1-$2 range, but if the pieces come together just right it could reach $5. I know Adrian Sullivan’s RUG list I was playing this year would have really enjoyed having access to this. Another favorite card of mine, Prophet of Kruphix, can really provide a platform for this to shine.

 

Chief Engineer
Ravnica Rotation: Bulk – $2
Six Months: Bulk

This guy is undoubtedly cool, and there’s precedent for this effect being expensive in the form of Mycosynth Golem. The problem is that there are going to be so many more copies than Golem and it’s unlikely we’ll have enough real support for him in Standard to matter. Even Grand Architect couldn’t break the few dollar barrier and that was in Scars of Mirrodin when my trade binder had eleven or twelve pages of artifacts. Engineer may indeed sneak into something in Modern since the support is so much more robust there, but if that does in fact happen the in-print rare is not going to be the expensive card in that deck.

 

Jace, the Living Guildpact
Ravnica Rotation: $8-$10
Six Months: $4-6

Jace isn’t nearly as bad as many others think he is. He’s immediately capable of flipping their biggest threat back to their hand, so he passes the first Planeswalker test, even if it is a bit pricey to do so. We certainly can’t be upset about his mana cost. He doesn’t require anything specific out of your deck construction, which is great. The starting loyalty is excellent, which is a sort of protection as it is. His ultimate is pretty dang strong. The only real issue is that his +1 appears to be on the weaker side of things. It’s better than scry one, but probably a bit worse than scry two, since if you flip two lands you can’t ship them both to the bottom. Not getting a full mana’s worth of value out of his +1 is pretty tough. Of course, you’re almost definitely getting the requisite amount of value out of that +1 if you have cards in your deck you want in your graveyard. Like, hmm, maybe Souls or whatever else Khans brings us.

Jace is not going anywhere in the near future. We won’t know how potentially relevant he is until we start getting Khans spoilers. Assume that there won’t be any heavy graveyard payoff and trade him away accordingly, but check back in to my review at Khans to reassess. Nearly every Jace has been under-received relative to their actual playtime thus far, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is happening again.

 

Soul of Ravnica
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$3
Six Months: $2-$4

Chapin is a fan, although he thought the activated abilities were 3UU, not 5UU. At five mana the abilities are insane. At seven mana they’re merely fair. SoR is not going to take over a game immediately in the way that SoT may but it’s ability to draw you cards on command for as long as it sits in play will definitely dominate the long game. Even if they Thoughtseize or Doom Blade it you’re still going to have the option to just get paid on any end of turn you wish. A 6/6 flyer for six that draws you one to three cards as needed is a serious threat. It’s not as splashy as SoT or Soul of Phyrexia but it’s definitely got the power to hang. It’s on SCG right now for a mere $3 which seems low as it’s probably in the better half of Souls, but this is because it’s one of the DOTP promos. There will be enough extra copies in the market to keep the price fairly suppressed unless it becomes a major component of the Standard landscape.

 

Black

Bulk
In Garruk’s Wake
Indulgent Tormentor
Necromancer’s Stockpile
Stain the Mind

 

Liliana Vess
Ravnica Rotation:$5-$6
Six Months: $4-$5

M15 will make the sixth time this particular iteration of Liliana has been printed. In spite of this she has carried a $10+ price tag until now. Clearly the casual demand is there. Like most reprinted walkers, her price will decline in the short term but by this time next year, and perhaps even sooner, she’ll start rebounding a bit. Liliana will be a solid grab when she bottoms out.

 

Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
Ravnica Rotation: Bulk – $2
Six Months:$1-$3

I was conflicted about where to list Ob Nixilis. At first I was going to list him as bulk, but the appeal to the EDH crowd was enough for me to include him. He won’t matter in Standard unless we get fetches in Khans (which I put at < 5%,) but he will have fringe playability in Modern and reasonable demand in 99 card formats. I admittedly don’t see him showing up too much in Modern, but it’s possible there will occasionally be decks that want access to the effect. In EDH he’s pretty nifty as he can really stymie opponent’s board development, and anything that sweeps a bunch of smaller guys away will turn him into a legitimate threat pretty quickly. I like foils of Ob Nixilis down the road.

 

Soul of Innistrad
Ravnica Rotation: $2-$4
Six Months: $2-$3

Even though he’s in the right colors for Standard success, SoI’s ability isn’t especially splashy. It’s most surely grindy and attritiony, but it doesn’t read as exciting as SoT or SoS. He loops back around to that potential graveyard theme we were discussing earlier. If it shows up, he could be a serious component of the metagame as an enabler of all sorts of shenanigans. If not, he’ll most just be a 6/6 that grinds out value over the long game. In the latter situation he won’t see enough play to drive his price much. Meanwhile there will be reasonable EDH demand for this guy in a way that we won’t see on most of the others in the cycle. It’s hard to imagine a black deck that wouldn’t be happy with this ability. Like Ob Nixilis, foils will be juicy targets.

 

Waste Not
Ravnica Rotation: $4-$6
Six Months: $1-$4

Waste Not occupies a space few other cards do; it is drenched in casual appeal, yet also possibly pushed hard enough to be playable in Standard. As an added twist of flavor it’s the You Make The Card card. That alone won’t save the card, but it certainly won’t hurt it either.

Liliana’s Caress is a $3 uncommon so there is precedent for this type of card being worth a reasonable amount. This will slowly drop while it’s in Standard and copies make their way into unsleeved kitchen table decks everywhere, but sometime between December and July it will start to pull back up again. This is all assuming that it isn’t good enough to make it in Standard. Thoughtseize is certainly a reasonable enabler and if we get another incidental discard effect that’s playable on its own this could make it into FNMs. If that happens the floor on this will only be $2-$4 before it starts to climb again. I just wish Whispering Madness wasn’t rotating.

 

Red

Bulk
Aggressive Mining
Burning Anger
Crucible of Fire
Goblin Kaboomist
Hoarding Dragon
Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient
Siege Dragon

 

Chandra, Pyromaster
Ravnica Rotation: $5-$7
Six Months: $4-$10

Like Liliana, Chandra will take a dip in the meantime but will climb again once we get past M15. Unlike Liliana, Chandra is a good bit more powerful and therefore much more likely to show up in Standard. In six months time she may not have caught on again, and if that happens, she’ll be near her floor. If she does end up doing work before then, perhaps alongside Prophetic Flamespeaker, a rebound into double digits is plausible.

 

Goblin Rabblemaster
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$3
Six Months: $2-$4

We know this card is playable because it’s the Buy-A-Box promo. He’s also a goblin, which continues to carry casual demand, as Krenko has illustrated. These prices I’m giving you are basically his floor at those given times assuming he sees zero to mild Standard play. If goblins is A Thing in Standard, he could easily reach $6-$10.

 

Soul of Shandalar
Ravnica Rotation: $3-$5
Six Months: $5-$10

Soul of Shandalar may end up being the best of the bunch. First strike means SoS is going to win nearly every battle she (?) gets into. The activated ability continues to pressure people’s life totals while eating small blockers. It can even be used to put some damage on a high-toughness creature ahead of first strike damage to take down large targets in combat, effectively making her a nine power first-striker when you have five mana up. She’s a nightmare to block and is capable of dealing damage straight to the face even if you can’t get through for some reason. She really does it all – she attacks well, she can pressure a life total through a clogged board state, and she can remove smaller targets.

I think that SoS may be the best in the Soul cycle. It likely won’t get there before September, but SoS will be poised to do great work in Standard once things shake up a bit. If her play is on the lighter end of things she’ll probably be $5 or so. If she ends up being a top ten card in the format then $10-$15+ is possible. Watch the Pro Tour closely to see how she performs; this could end up being one of the most lucrative cards of the set in the mid-term.

 

Green

Bulk
Hornet Nest
Hornet Queen
Kalonian Twingrove
Life’s Legacy
Phytotian
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

 

Chord of Calling
Ravnica Rotation: $6-$8
Six Months $4-$6

If you didn’t see this coming you weren’t paying attention. As soon as they announced convoke as the returning mechanic it should have been clear as day that we were getting Chord. Wizards has shown time and time again that they can and will reprint Modern cards that need it.

For a little while Chord held the lauded role of the most expensive card in Modern that didn’t deserve it. It’s since dropped to a more “reasonable” level of $30, but that price was sustained because of the very limited supply of a Ravnica rare in conjunction with Pod regularly being the best deck in the format. Now that Chord is a core set rare, that price is going to get absolutely crushed. The supply here will be more than enough to satiate the Modern demand for the card, which means the price will fall accordingly. Original Ravnica foils will still command a premium, but that’s the only thing that will withstand the glut of new copies.

 

Genesis Hydra
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$2
Six Months: Bulk – $5

I can’t quite figure out what I think about Genesis Hydra. You basically never want to cast this for anything less than X=3, so he’s really a five or six drop at best. Paying five mana for a 3/3 and hopefully a little something else for your trouble is reasonable, and it gets much better quickly. Putting seven mana in is almost always going to be worth it. At X=5 you can get a 5/5 and “settle” for a Polukranos all for seven mana, which is a real sweet deal. Seven may sound like a lot but most green decks, especially ones with Nykthos, can get there without much effort.

The prevalence of Caryatid and Courser certainly bodes well for Genesis Hydra, and the type of deck Hydra is good in would probably want him as a three- or four-of. Will that deck and his performance in it be good enough to push him into the spotlight though? It probably depends heavily on what good two, three, and four drops we get. Reclamation Sage is a pretty great place to start, as is Banishing Light. If we get another solid ETB four drop and maybe a two drop he could climb up to at least a few bucks. If the support doesn’t quite emerge he’ll end up in the bulk bin.

 

Nissa, Worldwaker
Ravnica Rotation: $17-$23
Six Months: $15-$30

I’ll let others gush about Nissa. Suffice to say that she’s dang powerful, and is in exactly the color that can get her into play soon enough to be extremely threatening. With cards like Genesis Hydra and Nykthos to pair with her land untapping, the seeds are sown for a big mana list. The only thing preventing her from flat out being the unquestionably best walker in Standard is that it says “forest” instead of “land.” She’ll still be powerful, but any deck that runs her is going to need a critical mass of forests, which will restrict her utility.

If she sees enough play out of the gate her price will not drop at all. I’m not expecting her to make big waves immediately though, as Lifebane Zombie is still going to put too much pressure on anything too reliant on green creatures. She should slip until rotation, but probably not by too much. Not only will Standard brewers want to get their hands on copies, but casual demand will really help shore up price loss. It’s tough to say where she’ll be by January. If she sees very minor play in standard she’ll be in the $12-$15 range just on FNM and casual demand. If she’s played to moderate success, as Kiora is/has been, expect her to be closer to $20. If the Khans land cycle amazingly has land types or if we’re on the verge of the green renaissance, she could easily be $30. All we can really do is wait and see.

 

Soul of Zendikar
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$3
Six Months: Bulk-$2

If there is a green renaissance, it probably isn’t going to involve this guy. Reach is useful but isn’t nearly as strong as flying or trample. Making 3/3’s is fine but activating it once doesn’t have the power to take over a game like some of the other abilities. It’s also likely the worst one from the graveyard. Add in that he’s a promo for DotP and we’ve got a bulk mythic.

 

Gold

Garruk, Apex Predator
Ravnica Rotation: $18-$25
Six Months: $5-$12

Is Garruk cool? No doubt. He’s big, his first +1 is splashy, and he’s got four abilities. Unfortunately cool doesn’t equate with value. It’s possible he could come down and take out an Elspeth and run away with the game, but what is far more likely is that he makes a 3/3 deathtouch then eats a Hero’s Downfall or Banishing Light or Detention Sphere or Dreadbore or [Khans PW removal spell]. This is all assuming you’re still alive when you get to seven and he hasn’t been Thoughtseized.

When Nicol Bolas came down he either destroyed the best permanent in play or gained control of it. There were also no spells in the format that said “destroy target Planeswalker.” The times have changed, and Garruk is just not going to do enough when he resolves for how easy it can be to top deck an answer. Even if they don’t have the removal in hand, Garruk could easily tick up three times, die to a found answer, and not have done enough on the board to win the game. I certainly like Garruk, and he’ll be fun at FNM, but I doubt he’ll be able to hang.

The price is high right now because he’s the marquee Planeswalker. As demand from the casual market is sated and tournament results continue to lack his presence, his price will slip further and further. He will rebound eventually and start climbing, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get as low as $5-$8 before he does.

 

Sliver Hivelord
Ravnica Rotation: $8-$12
Six Months: $4-$8

Maybe Slivers are competitive for the last two months of this Standard, but I doubt it. What’s more likely is that a few people try it at FNM and it can’t withstand the assault of Mono-Black and Mono-Blue. Hivelord will fade from relevance after rotation, and the price will keep dropping until it begins to rebound sometime next year. This will be a great card to drop at the floor though.

 

Artifact/Land

Bulk
Avarice Amulet
Grindclock
Haunted Plate Mail
Obelisk of Urd
Phyrexian Revoker
Shield of the Avatar

 

Perilous Vault
Ravnica Rotation: $4-$7
Six Months: $5-$10

Oblivion Stone climbed towards $15 during its height before being reprinted. Nevinyrral’s Disk was a major factor in multiple formats over the years and remains several bucks. Perilous Vault is a powerful artifact in this same vein.

Exiling is a big step up from destroying in nearly all situations. The biggest exception that comes to mind is if you control a Wurmcoil (RG Tron), but the damage from that can be mitigated. Universal sweepers aren’t typically available to all colors, but when they are they’re greatly appreciated. All is Dust is a solid $15+ despite existing as a GP Promo. The effects of Vault will not be felt immediately, but it will probably come out to play multiple times over it’s tenure in Standard. Not only that, it will show up in Modern, Legacy, and EDH. While no format is likely to see it become a pillar, it will be an important tool in each. My expectation is that Vault will behave similar to many mythics that will have a smallish impact in Standard but are needed for other formats. The price will drop for a time, but will rebound and continue to grow, possibly upwards of $20, after enough time has passed.

 

Scuttling Doom Engine
Ravnica Rotation: $1-$3
Six Months: Bulk – $5

Salvaged Mirrodin art aside, is Engine it? Is a card with a name as stupid as Scuttling Doom Engine the sleeper of the set? We’ve got a colorless 6/6 for 6 that can’t be blocked by Carytid, Courser, or Elspeth Tokens that can kill most Planeswalkers (and sometimes players) if it dies. If you connect with Doom Engine just one time and then Doom Blade it you’ve done twelve damage to your opponent. Unless they chain this guy to some rocks or Path to Exile gets reprinted, he’s going to be a headache for most challengers. Factor in cards like Chief Engineer that set up even faster Doom Engines or graveyard recursion and you’ve got a solid plan in any color that wants it. I could easily see this at $10 if it ends up being one of the best rares in the set, which is entirely possible. If it slips into bulk status I’ll probably snag a bunch.

 

Soul of New Phyrexia
Ravnica Rotation: $7-$10
Six Months: $4-$6

Indestructible on demand is useful, but I’m not sure it’s “better than all of the souls in my colors” useful, especially at five mana per activation. The activated abilities of other Souls are basically relevant at all times, but this guy really only can pay you if they’re threatening a huge board state or have non-exile removal. Other than that, he’s “just” a 6/6 trampler. That’s obviously nothing to shake a stick at, but competition is fierce these days. I think I’d rather have Doom Engine most of the time, honestly. I’m willing to be wrong about this though.

SCG has preorders at $15 which just feels real high to me. If this was instead listed at $6 I don’t think I would find it odd. Unless this card is just way better than I think it is it will continue to slip towards the $5 range.

 

The Chain Veil
Ravnica Rotation: $3-$5
Six Months: $2-$4

Chain Veil is a very cool card, hands down. While the wording may be inelegant, it has in fact been confirmed that this can ‘go infinite,’ with say a Ral Zarek, Nissa, and four forests. (It’s not actually infinite infinite because if you use Ral’s ultimate and fail all five flips you can’t keep untap the Veil, but at least you get infinite Planeswalker loyalty.) It will be popular in some EDH decks and in casual circles, but I have real trouble imagining this being good enough in any other format. The price will drop for awhile, but like Perilous Vault, this will be a great pickup at its floor as casual demand will continue to push it towards $10 without a reprint.

 

Sliver Hive
Ravnica Rotation: $2-$3
Six Months: $1-$3

Barring a breakout Standard performance, Sliver Hive should settle in the low dollars range. Casual appeal will keep the card out of bulk status, but it won’t climb north of $5 for quite some time.

 

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Ravnica Rotation: $7-$9
Six Months: $4-$7

The price on this won’t drop too rapidly, but by January the market should be pretty well saturated. I’m not anticipating heavy Standard play on this guy and my price expectations reflect that. A single copy will be a freeroll in anything that plays black, but that’s just one lonely copy. It’s tough to imagine what deck wants four of these. I do really like foils though. The PLC foils are a solid $50. The M15 ones could easily be $30-$40. Right now they may be preordering for around that, but if they drop towards $20 I’d be happy to trade for them.

 

Painlands
Ravnica Rotation: $2-$4
Six Months: $2-$4

The fact that the price of all of these lands started rising after they were announced in M15 is a testament to how little many people understand about card value. Once the initial wave of M15 hits the prices should settle nicely in the few dollar range, with Shivan Reef perhaps being a tad more than the others thanks to more Modern demand. The M10 Checklands showed us that despite an enormous quantity in the market the price on quiet staple lands can still hang around a few dollars. I expect no different here.

By: Travis Allen

M15 spoilers are are well underway, with only one mythic left to go at the time of this writing. Join me in a week or two for the full set review. In the meantime, I’m going to double back and check out my Born of the Gods review. We’re going to see what I wrote, how accurate I was, if there are any lessons to be learned, and finally consider the future of the card now that we know more about it and the metagame at large.

It’s important to remember when reading any set review that we are forced to evaluate cards in a pseudo-vacuum, but they never exist as such. When I look at Brimaz I have to consider the card individually, free of whatever the metagame looks like that particular month. Brimaz’s text box isn’t going to change but the cards other people are playing are. I need to focus on what concrete information I have available to me. Because of this set reviews are especially challenging. I have to look at Brimaz and make an evaluation based strictly on the words printed on the card, but his true worth will be dependent on the cards around him, a pool that will change significantly over time. Cards that are excellent right now may have been trash in an alternate timeline. It would be easy to construct a Standard environment where Desecration Demon is crap (such as INN-RTR,) or where Prime Speaker Zegana is a chase mythic. Even the hallowed Jace was bad at release since there wasn’t a single other playable blue card in the format and Bloodbraid Elf + Blightning threatened to shut him down as soon as he resolved.

The point I’m making is that when considering this review, and all other reviews, it’s important to be good Bayesians and recognize that a powerful card should be good and a weaker, situational card should be bad, but the constraints of the format around them, complete unknowns to the hapless reviewer, will be the true determining factor in identifying whether a card is a bulk mythic or a $20 rare.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos

Preorders for Brimaz are around $25 at the moment. This is still in the prerelease honeymoon period, but out of all the mythics, Brimaz is the clear front runner. I would guess that he won’t manage to get much lower than $10 ever, if even that low. If he sinks as low as $15 I wouldn’t hesitate to start grabbing copies, and under $15 go hog wild. If you are dying to play with him right now I think you could do worse than buying a set and accepting the fact that you’re losing $40 on the purchase. If you’re the only guy in the room putting Simba tokens into play he could very well make up that $40 pretty quickly.

I’d like to say I had a pretty good bead on Brimaz. He’s seen a tad less play than I and many others would have predicted, and is therefore on the lower end of the projected price range, but overall he’s well within the limits that were laid out. I probably wasn’t quite explicit enough with that range because that only sets me up for failure. You’ll have to take me at my word that I was thinking he would be between $15 and $20.

Like many cards in Theros, especially the good ones, we won’t see him cheaper until possibly next April, so if you want a set now is the time to hop in.

Eidolon of Countless Battles

It’s apparent from Sam’s article that they are pushing Eidolon a bit more than Keldon Warlord. Creatures of this nature historically haven’t been quite good enough, and even if they are, they’re probably not being played as a four-of. There isn’t any money to be made here at the moment, but when it hits bulk rare in a few weeks, I couldn’t fault you for grabbing copies. It’s one heck of a way to follow up an Ajani. The art is pretty cool too, so that’s something.

The demand for Countless Battles was apparently greater than expected, given that he’s hanging around $2, although it seems to have come mostly from casual tables. He’s shown up only rarely in any constructed format. (I say this as I have four sleeved up for a Standard deck.) I guess once Keldon Warlord is pushed enough it becomes popular. He isn’t soaring above my call of bulk pricing, but he’s still more than I thought he would be. Perhaps this is also a factor of being in Born of the Gods? I can’t imagine he would hold $2 if printed in Theros. It’s possible a great deal of my price expectations will be a tad low if I didn’t fully take into account the 6:2:1 distribution.

Fated Retribution

Unlikely to do too much in Standard (see Planar Cleansing,) but it’s got EDH written all over it. Like most cards of this type, normal copies will be $.15 and foils will be a few bucks.

The cheapest copy on TCG is $.23, so I was pretty close. It may have gotten that cheap if someone didn’t play it in UW control once at an SCG event.

Hero of Iroas

A cool casual card that is almost definitely not going to make it past FNM. He could sneak up to a dollar or two once Theros rotates, so if you can get them for basically free, go for it. Don’t expect anything out of him in Standard though. The reason Bant Auras was a thing last season was because your two targets were hexproof, and the reason Kor Spiritdancer is good enough in Modern is that she draws cards before they can kill her. This particular hero has neither of those going for him.

Hero is hanging around $1.50 right now which is right in the expected range. He got there a tad early on casual demand but he isn’t surging over $5 or anything. There should be some slow growth on this over the years but fear of a reprint in a dual deck or something would keep me away from it.

Plea for Guidance

Idyllic Tutor is a $10 card, but that was in Morningtide, not BNG. There will be probably five to six (or more?) copies of Plea in circulation than Idyllic. It is likely to do well, but in a span of time measured in years.

At $.13, I’d say this was accurate.

Spirit of the Labyrinth

From our perspective, the outlook is less exciting. It will be passable in Standard, but it’s hardly more than a Daring Skyjek. Maybe 10%-20% of the time you cast it the rules text will be relevant, but that’s about it. In Modern the forecast is similar, where there isn’t really a huge amount of card draw going around. Combo decks like Pod and Twin don’t need to draw many extra cards if any at all, and Dark Confidant gets around it. Spirit is ultimately at her best in Legacy, which is never really capable of driving prices much on Standard rares. It’s unlikely this will see any more play than Thalia does, and she’s still barely $3. Ship yours now, be on the lookout for foils, and don’t bother acquiring for speculation purposes until it’s under a dollar.

I’m particularly pleased with this, since there were plenty of people that thought this was going to be a Big Deal. There are copies available under $1 on TCG and MTGPrice is showing a fair trade value of just $1.61. Spirit demonstrates that an in-print non-foil rare only used in Legacy just can’t sustain a meaningful price. We’ll all do well to remember this when similar cards show up in future sets.

Fated Infatuation

Remember Cackling Counterpart? Yeah, me neither.

Yep.

Mindreaver

This card already exists in Grimoire Thief. Grimoire Thief is from Morningtide, one of the modern sets most likely to see extraordinary price tags. Grimoire Thief is $1.50. Don’t buy Mindreaver.

Yep.

Tromokratis

This guy is pretty cool, and may actually make it into Standard, but the prerelease promo is going to crush any potential value he had. Fantastic art on the promo, but then I’ve always been a sucker for monsters in the mist.

Yep.

Whelming Wave

The coolest sweeper nobody is really going to play. How often are you going to want this over Supreme Verdict? The odds of a deck with creatures wanting to play it is awfully slim, since you’d need enough sea monsters to make it worth it. Perhaps Grixis could use it as a sweeper type effect, but they’ve already got Anger of the Gods, Infest, Bile Blight, etc. I just don’t see this cutting it, and in a world where Spirit of the Labyrinth is a $3 card, this is $.10.

Boy, blue got basically nothing in Born of the Gods, didn’t it?

Bile Blight

How expensive can an uncommon get? We may find out this set. With how underwhelming BNG is, there won’t be a rush to crack packs. Given that black is both the best color and deck right now, there’s going to be a lot of demand on Bile Blight and not enough supply. $3-$4+ seems plausible. If you find people selling them for $.50 or less, buy them all.

I liked this, right up until it was in the event deck. Blah. It looks like about a month after release it was around $2, so I wasn’t too far off. If you had bought them at less than $.50 you could have buylisted them at one point for a small profit at least.

Champion of Stray Souls

$3 is a bit much right now, but when he inevitably sinks to $1, I’ll probably trade for a few playsets and stash him. At the very least, he’s guaranteed to climb back up to a few bucks a ways down the road.

He’s followed the trajectory I anticipated, and I’ve held true to my words and grabbed a few copies where I could. With the new Soul cycle he’s certainly looking a bit more plausible. I can imagine a junk shell that uses dorks, Grisly Salvage, Champion, and a few Souls to generate an engine where you’re either flipping Souls into play from Champion or exiling them to advance your board position. In any case, Champion is a low-risk position to take. He can’t get any cheaper, and Casual/EDH demand may carry him towards $5 in a year or two.

Fate Unraveler

Complete trash in Standard but a popular casual effect, especially in the wake of Nekusar. If this was printed in Shadowmoor, it would have been subjected to the routine price spike we’ve all become accustomed too. Having been printed in BNG though, there will be more Unravelers than those looking to summon her.

At $.37 on MTGPrice, I’d say this was an accurate read.

Gild

An acceptable answer to gods for Black (which obviously needs the help,) but will probably never become more than a one or two-of type of thing. The closest comparison is Sever the Bloodline. Sever managed $2 or $3 for a brief window, but that card was pretty much completely better. The flip side of that is that we work with what we’ve got, and there weren’t indestructible Gods begging to be exiled in Innistrad. This card has gotten panned, and as unexciting as I find it, it may have enough of a place in the format to hit $2 or so. Gold tokens are certainly unique at the very least.

This had an outside shot right up until Silence the Believers was printed. It’s been completely outclassed at this point, so stay away.

Herald of Torment

I have trouble seeing a deck ever wanting this over Nightveil Specter. It does slightly more damage, yes, but being able to steal cards from opponents, especially if you can generate black mana, seems way more valuable. I can’t imagine this doing anything at all until the fall, but perhaps once we lose Nightveil he’ll have a place. I’m not personally wild about him, but if you are, at least wait until June when he’ll be a dime.

Well I botched this one pretty good. The issue is that while I considered Nightveil Specter completely better, I ignored the possibility that other decks that didn’t want Specter may instead want Herald. In my defense he hasn’t set the world on fire, so it’s not like I cost you hundreds of dollars in lost opportunity. I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, and the ~70 Heralds at my apartment are testament to that.

Pain Seer

The amount of work you need to do to make this good is just not worth it. Anyone that has cast Confidant knows that more than half the time he’s in play you aren’t turning him sideways, and unless we see some bonkers 1-drop inspiration enablers, Seer won’t be any different. I can imagine someone putting him into a slower Esper humans deck next to Xathrid Necromancer, but that won’t be enough to keep his price up. Avoid at all costs and ship ASAP. Take a 30% loss if you need to, because getting $7 in trade for him at prerelease weekend will be better than $.70 two weeks later.

I may have messed up Herald, but I was spot on with Pain Seer. As expected, it’s been too difficult to make Pain Seer work to drive any real price movement. He’s $1.35 on MTGPrice and most of that is from people still thinking he’s good enough or speculation. The ‘almost’ cards that Wizards prints have a pretty poor track record at this point. I would be cautious of others we see in the future.

Having said all of that, Pain Seer looks much better now than he did at prerelease. Springleaf Drum may not be enough to enable inspiration but it’s definitely a great start. Add in Herald as a way to get Pain Seer into the air and convoke as the returning mechanic in M15 and you’ve got some solid ways to turn Pain Seer sideways. I haven’t bought any yet but I’ve been considering it. I can’t say for sure whether I think this will make it anywhere but I wouldn’t fault you for picking some up.

Fated Conflagration

I talked about Buy-A-Box promos in my Theros review, and the long and short of it is that they’re typically quite playable. Fated Conflagration definitely seems to follow suit, but that triple red seals its fate. It will get played, but the price will never climb above $3 or $4, and that’s pushing it. There’s just not enough decks that can cast this card. Ship now and put your dollars elsewhere.

At $.14 on TCG this has really bottomed out. It quite possibly would have been seriously playable if not for RRR. There’s a chance it could show up in Eidolon of the Great Revel builds later on, but even that won’t be enough to push it much.

Felhide Spiritbinder

The most intriguing Minotaur I’ve seen yet. With how popular 187s have been lately, and how cheap that trigger is, there’s a chance he could make it to the sixty card leagues. The trigger could have easily been 2R or 3R, at which point I wouldn’t even be writing about it. 1R is affordable enough to be worth discussing. Making copies of Reckoner isn’t terribly exciting, but I’m sure there are other bodies that will be.

Having said all that, can he climb above $1? Probably not. Rares have to see some serious play to make it above a buck, and even if Spiritbinder is good, I doubt he’s that good.

I gave this guy a chance but he just hasn’t materialized. He’s well under $1 at this point. Convoke may help, but it’s unlikely we’ll get something strong enough to really push his price. It would have to be a tier one list to get him above $2.

Flame-Wreathed Phoenix

This card is awesome. Here’s the thing about punisher cards. The kitchen tabler looks at Vexing Devil and says “holy crow that thing is amazing!” The FNM/PTQ player looks at it and says “It’s worse than it looks, because you always get the worst mode of the card.” The wise player looks at it and says “What if I’m happy with the worst mode every time?” That’s where we are.

Sure, you’re going to get the worse half of this card 90% of the time. But if the bad half is still very playable, then the card is completely fine. Four mana for a 3/3 flying haste is a rate we’ve never seen on a monocolored creature that stays around. The only other 5/5 flyer for four in Red made you sac two mountains when it came into play. When you cast this your opponent is going to pick the mode that’s easier to deal with, but they very well may be unable to deal with either, especially after you’ve curved out.

Red is always looking for a good four drop, and they’ve got it in Phoenix. Don’t buy in at $10, but if it slips to sub-$5, feel free to trade. I’ll be putting cash in if it makes it below $2. I’m fairly confident this thing gets below $5 at some point, and then hits $10-$15 before it rotates.

I was clearly far more optimistic about this than others were. Standard red decks often want a four drop finisher. Past performers such as Hero of Oxid Ridge were $10 at some point so there’s some amount of precedence. Of course, the performance of Exava has certainly tempered my enthusiasm. At least I was smart enough not to provide a timetable on when this would spike.

Between Mana Confluence, the impending rotation of Desecration Demon, and the appearance of Painlands, burn is looking pretty well situated. I admittedly haven’t bought any of these yet, but the next time I place an order I may grab a few sets.

Satyr Firedancer

This is a curious card. It’s hardly an aggressive creature as a 1/1 for two. But what it does do is reward players for pointing burn at their opponent’s face. I’m sure you’ve all played against the guy with the unsleeved burn deck that shocks you on turn one. With Firedancer, it’s no longer a necessarily bad play (after turn two.) He’s kind of like a two mana personal Furnace of Rath. Allowing your burn to do double duty is nothing to scoff at, and he may be able to put more pressure on a life total than you realize. I expect him to hit bulk rates pretty quick, but I’m not certain he’ll stay there. Between him and Young Pyro, that’s eight two-drops that reward you for playing a lot of instants and sorceries. At the very least, I expect him to be reasonably popular with casual players.

Currently hanging around $1.50, Firedancer is behaving quite similarly to what I predicted. He has no real competitive success to his name, but casual tables and FNMers are fans, which has propped him up above bulk. I’d expect the same moving forward, with his price maybe doubling or so within the next year.

Searing Blood

How many $2-$3 uncommons can a single set support? I think we’re going to find out in BNG.

Man these uncommons are killing me. You can probably get $2-$3 for it in trade at least, which is something I guess.

Courser of Kruphix

Courser was a real heartbreaker. At first pass I was certain I’d never cast anything else, and then I realized it didn’t allow me to play extra lands each turn. Once I got over my sudden and severe depression, I re-evaluated the card. I can see her being popular in a lot of green decks, both in Standard and more casually-oriented tables. She survives Bile Blight, blocks for days, adds double devotion, and helps ramp decks stay ahead on life against anything terribly aggressive. I feel like she’s probably a $2 card, but given how much I love casting cards like this, it’s hard for me to separate my bias. Use your own judgment on this one.

Hah, for once tempering my love of value green creatures was actually detrimental. I had my personal suspicions that Courser was really quite good but I assumed it was because I’m so biased to like this type of card. I gave you guys a much more conservative reading because I figured she wasn’t nearly as good as I wanted it to be. Turns out, Courser was even better than I thought she was. In fact, she turned out better than everyone thought she was. I guess the lesson here is that when I really think a card is powerful I should be forthcoming about that and not let my self-awareness get in the way of making bolder predictions. I definitely fell short on this one, but nobody would have guessed she’d make it to $15.

Hero of Leina Tower

Even Rancor, the hallowed savior of green aggro, would have trouble saving her. If Wolfbitten Captive couldn’t make it, neither will this.

Chromanticore

Imagine someone has been playing Magic for six months and decides to design a card with Bestow. This is what it would look like. The real kick in the teeth is that it isn’t even Legendary for the subset of EDH players that would want it. I can see this being a few dollars down the road just because of how silly it is, and foils will probably command a bit of a premium, but that’s about it. Look for the person at your prerelease you’ve don’t recognize that has no playmat and no sleeves. Trade it to him.

This has performed exactly as expected, although I’m more of a fan of it now than I was before. It showed up in a few Japanese lists that were able to put together the mana without too much trouble without even having access to Mana Confluence. This guy is wacky for sure, and there’s no guarantee he’ll manage to do anything of relevance, but at $1 in trade I’d be happy to grab him where I could. You’ll be able to buylist him for at least that at some point down the road if nothing materializes.

Ephara, God of the Polis

I think I’m a little blinded to how good Ephara is because once I thought about her alongside of Prophet of Kruphix, I couldn’t think of much else. Regardless of how good she ends up being in Standard, as with most demigods I expect her to sink towards $5 before (if) she manages anything more. UW valuable guys always seems to do well at some point in a format though, and Ephara would be a pretty solid payoff. Detention Sphere is also in these colors, which is going to be an excellent way to remove threats while boosting your devotion. I doubt she’s Thassa good, but she’s better than several others. All in all, I’m pretty up on Ephara.

At only $3 on MTGPrice, I’m a bit surprised. I really didn’t think the gods could get quite that low, but here we are. I did say that she would sink to $5, so at least I had that part of it right. I continue to be of the opinion that she could be relevant after rotation. Notice I said “could” – not “will.”

Karametra, God of Harvests

The only decks Karametra should be fetching from are the 99-card type. I’m guessing she’ll end up being the cheapest God in the medium term, but feel free to grab cheap copies when she bottoms out, because every God will rise after they’ve been out of Standard for a bit. There’s a sliver of a chance she sees play as a one-of in Standard, but I highly doubt it.

I did better here than with Ephara at least.

Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Pat Chapin said more and better words about Kiora than I can, so read that. As of the 27th there are 40 copies for $25 on SCG, so it’s obvious there isn’t hot demand yet. I’d stay away until she is around $12 or so. Watch to see if she shows up anywhere, and then consider picking some up. For why that is, read my Planeswalker Curve article.

Kiora has seen some moderate play in Standard and she’s right at that $12 mark. I was pretty on with what I expected her to do up until this point. Now is the time to be snagging copies.

Mogis, God of Slaughter

Anyone who thinks this card is bad has never played against Sulfuric Vortex. Mogis is going to be hitting for two damage almost every turn, because sacrificing a guy will almost always result in more than two getting through. You can’t think of it as “Oh it’s only taking me from twenty to eighteen.” It’s going to be taking you from ten to eight, and they’re going to have more attackers on the board, and next turn they may play Fanatic. The pressure Mogis is capable of creating is going to be nigh insurmountable in plenty of games. Don’t underestimate him. I consider him in the same ballpark as Phoenix goes in terms of punisher cards. Yes, punisher cards are worse than they look. But whether your opponent is sacrificing guys or taking two damage, either one is probably going to be just fine. A large Master of Waves is the worst-case scenario, and there’s plenty of black removal that solves that problem nicely.

The absolute cheapest God is still about $5 right now, so that’s a pretty firm floor. I’d be happy to trade for Mogis at $5 all day, and sell as soon as he hits $10.

Mogis is still just about $5 so I was pretty accurate with my call of his floor. I continue to think he’s a completely reasonable card, but the metagame just has not broken his way. I obviously don’t know what will happen after rotation, but at least I guess his floor fairly accurately.

Phenax, God of Deception

Phenax will drop to $5-$7, although it may take slightly longer than the other gods. He also stands to see the most sustainable growth in the long-term. I’d mostly avoid for the time being, and revisit this option next summer.

Phenax is a bit above $4 on MTGPrice right now so I was pretty dang close. Standard has shown us he has no place there. Don’t expect that to change. He isn’t a bad long-term prospect so feel free to grab them in trade, but I wouldn’t be in a rush to stockpile him.

Xenagos, God of Revels

Like the other gods, his floor is around $5-$6, but realistically it’s probably $7 or $8. I’d be comfortable trading for him at $12 or less, because I definitely expect him to make appearances in Standard.

Xenagos, along with most of the other gods, are right at the bottom threshold of my floor predictions. I really thought they would have more impact on Standard than they did. I guess Mono-Black, Mono-Blue and Esper control have just too severely constrained the format for anything interesting to appear.

Xenagos has popped up in a few monsters lists in Standard. The power is clearly there. He really only shows up as a one- or two-of though. We may see some growth by the end of the year, but I’m not sure he can make it past $11 or $12.

Scrylands

The RTR block structure saw a 5-5-10 model of shocks, and a 3 RTR / 3 GTC / 1 DGM – 1 GTC – 1 RTR draft structure. Theros is going 5/3/2, and the draft will be 3 THS / 1 BNG – 2 THS / 1 JOU – 1 BNG – 1 THS. The difference here is that the shocks were evenly spread through the whole RTR block, and no one shock saw considerable more copies printed than the others. The Scrylands will function differently. The first five will be opened constantly for an entire year, with Theros being a part of every draft. The BNG scrys will be considerably less available, as they’re in less packs being opened for a lesser amount of time. These three lands should end up having enough less stock that their price will reflect that. Meanwhile, the Golgari and Izzet lands in JOU will be way underprinted relative to the other ones. Keep this in mind as you’re trading. A simple “one scry for one scry” trade practice could be very lucrative in the future.

I didn’t actually give you any numbers here, but given the price of Temple of Enlightenment, Temple of Malice, and Temple of Plenty, I’d say I had a decent read on how they would behave. Malice hasn’t done much, but both Enlightenment and Plenty are well over $7. If you don’t have yours yet, get them soon.

Overall I think this review was pretty solid. I nailed Spirit of the Labyrinth and Pain Seer, hopefully saving you some money in the process. The Herald of Torment outlook was a bit too pestimistic, Flame-Wreathed Phoenix so far hasn’t been quite as good as I thought it would be, and I wildly underestimated Courser of Kruphix, but all in all I feel mostly pleased with what I put here.

Travis is on vacation this week, so check out his predictions article from January first. Next week he’ll be back to review his Born of the Gods review, and a full M15 review won’t be far behind.

By: Travis Allen

Boy, I get you guys on Christmas and New Years? Excellent! I’m sure, like me, none of you ever do anything fun so you’re all sitting at home reading Magic articles on holidays, right? Guys?

Today is the first, and as the teeming hordes gear up for a what will end up being no more than three weeks at the gym, we gaze outward towards the coming year. January 1st is not a noteworthy date in MTG timelines, but it’s not uncommon for many of us to be thinking a little larger and a little more long-term today. The calendar year is laid out before us, ripe with possibilities and pitfalls. What will the subsequent days hold?

Nine months ago I jotted down the idea for an article about predictions. I never got around to it, and since then one of the notes I made materialized. (Thoughtseize being reprinted somewhere between MM and Theros.) My minor success has spurred me forward, and I’m going to share a few more things I see on the horizon for Magic in the coming year. Keep in mind all of this is probabilistic. If I guess thing X will happen, it just means that I think it’s more likely that it will happen then it won’t, not that it’s a mortal lock.

 

Prediction #1: We won’t see Fetchlands this year, but we’re getting quite close

Magic has this characteristic to it where we’re used to thinking about it on a day-to-day basis. We see cards rise in price in the span of hours and tournament results are constantly turning things on their heads every week or two. At the detailed level, Magic feels like it moves very fast.

Meanwhile, the general arc of the game is very slooooow. We only get new product a few times a year. It’s planned out years in advance. If a deck crops up that’s just far and away too good (CawBlade,) there’s nothing Wizards can do to fix the problem in a meaningful time frame other than ban the cards.

We only get one new theme a year. 2013 was Theros and the Greek thing. If you were sitting around in late March of 2013 and you saw the announcement for Theros and thought “I don’t like Greek mythology,” then you were pretty much screwed for an entire year. The game’s direction was set, and you were going to have to put up with it until Theros had run it’s course. Similarly, any flavor or mechanical direction they choose lives out the same way. On the eve of sets the rumor runs wild, with all sorts of ideas about what cards will be included, mechanics, new Planeswalkers, etc. Then the spoiler is fleshed out and you get what you get. No patch two weeks later to fix a change. No shaving a mana off a card. They’re printed as they’re printed, and that’s that.

The reason I bring all of this up is to help you step back when considering the timeline of lands in Magic. Remember we only get one new cycle of lands each year. One. When the scrylands were shown for Theros, that was it. No enemy manlands. No Nimbus Maze cycle. No fetches. We had to wait an entire year to see what the next land cycle would bring us. While we only see things a few months in advance, Wizards is the one playing the real long game.

This fall will bring the next cycle of lands, and the butts in the folding chairs are clamoring for fetchlands. It feels like it’s been forever since we had them, and the prices reflect that sentiment. As much as many out there want them though, I don’t think we’re getting them this year. Let’s take a look some past land cycles:

Theros: Scrylands
Ravnica: Shocklands
Innistrad: Enemy checklands
Scars of Mirrodin: Fastlands
Zendikar: Enemy Fetches, Manlands
Shards: None
Lorwyn/Shadowmoor: Tribal & Filters
Timespiral: Nimbus Maze/Horizon Canopy/etc
Ravnica OG: Shocklands
Kamigawa: Legendary lands or something? Who even knows
Mirrodin: Artifact lands
Onslaught: Fetchlands

That’s the past twelve years of Magic blocks and their respective lands. You can see that we only get “cool” lands every several years. It took three years after Onslaught to get quality rare lands. The original Ravnica gave us shocks, and then it was another four years before we had something special with the Zendikar lands. Filters were there in the interim, but were not particularly popular until much more recently. After Zendikar, you had two more years of boring mana bases until Return and the shocks, well, returned. Now, here we are considering the 2014 mana base. Given the history of lands, do you think Wizards will give us Fetchlands with only a single set between them and the Shocklands? It was seven years after Onslaught that Wizards reprinted Fetchlands. 2014 will be five years after Zendikar. Almost enough time has elapsed for Fetches to return in a fall set, but not yet.

Rosewater has said repeatedly that lands are a precious resource. There is simply not a lot of design space in lands, so they use the good ones sparingly. If they flood us with awesome lands several years in a row, we end up getting used to them. So they dole them out, one cycle every several years, to make the great lands feel special. Shocklands are still in Standard. Do you think as they rotate out, we’re going to be handed Fetchlands? Remember that Fetches are basically the most popular land not on the reserved list. Talk about greedy.

2015 is probably the earliest we’ll see Fetches in a fall set. It will be six years past Zendikar, which is nearly as long as between Onslaught and Zendikar. Demand will be at a fevered pitch quite soon though, so they may be forced to pull the trigger a year early and relieve financial pressure on the cards.

If the Fetchlands aren’t on the docket, then what is? I do think that the Filters are a reasonable option for this year. They were a notable omission from Modern Masters. They have extremely limited supply, as they were printed before Zendikar, which falls in the pre-DOTP era right alongside the original Thoughtseize. They’re reasonably popular with casual players, great EDH cards, and quite playable in Modern. They’ll also pair well with a year of devotion behind us, as they allow a little more flexibility in casting RR on turn two and 1UU on turn three.

It’s possible we’ll see the Zen Fetches pop up in an auxiliary product this year, but it will be in a much more limited quantity than a fall set release. Maybe they’ll do $70 Modern precons with one Fetch each or something.

And when they finally do reprint Fetchlands in a fall set? It’s going to be the Onslaught ones. If you think Misty Rainforest is expensive, take a look at Polluted Delta. Those were first printed WAY back, when there were roughly thirty people playing Magic. There are so very few copies out there. Reprinting them first will help ease strain on Legacy manabases as well as give Modern players twice as many options, which will have the additional benefit of taking some of the pressure off the Zendikar lands.

Alright, 1200 words in and only one prediction so far. This is going great!

 

Prediction 2: A Standard mythic that is currently under $7 will be $20+ sometime this year

This is hardly a risky call, but it’s a prediction nonetheless. I believe there is currently a sleeper mythic out there that is being overlooked. Will it be Master Biomancer experiencing a surge due to Kiora and her support? Perhaps Ral Zarek will break open Nykthos in the spring set, sending him to $25? Or will it be Heliod, who can be had for under $4 on TCGPlayer, that bursts into the spotlight?

I don’t know which card it will be, but something very cheap in Standard right now is going to be a lot more expensive before the year is over.

 

Prediction 3: By the end of 2014, MTGO will still pretty much suck

We’ll get promises, patches, and untold amounts of complaining on Twitter. The end result will be that MTGO will still not be very good. Unless they hire 200 developers – today – the MTGO beta is not going to be where it needs to be by year’s end.

Prediction 4: There will be another Modern product this summer

The Modern PTQ season this year starts on June 7th, 2014. Modern Masters was released on June 7th, 2013. It’s possible it’s a coincidence, sure. But it’s also very possible that the announcement will be “The Modern PTQ season starts 6/7. Here is a bunch more Modern product.” What better way to kick off the PTQ season than with humanitarian aid full of Modern staples people need?

There’s a lot of things that product could be. It could be Modern event decks. They could simply re-release Modern Masters. Maybe we get Modern Masters Remixed, with roughly 30 cards changed. Or perhaps it’s an (unlikely) full-blown Modern Masters Two. This I don’t know.

 

Prediction 5: Magic growth will slow down

Magic has grown at an absurd rate of 25% a year for four years running. That’s awesome, but that level of growth is unsustainable. Eventually we’re going to be on the other side of that climb, and probably have a heavily-overprinted set as a result. I’m not saying Magic is going to lose players in 2014, but I bet we see that it’s not growing as fast either.

This is going to be something to pay attention to in the long term for anyone with serious money invested in the game. You don’t want to be caught holding 1,000 copies of the next Deathrite Shaman, only to find the game has shrunk a bit and the prices are not rebounding as you thought they would.

 

Prediction 6: I break 500 followers on Twitter

I’m at 482, so this one feels pretty safe. If I manage one follower every three weeks, I’ll get there. Setting the bar high! @wizardbumpin